


You Keep What You Kill

by Silent_So_Long



Category: Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_So_Long/pseuds/Silent_So_Long
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riddick holds to the Necromonger adage of keeping what he kills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Keep What You Kill

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [smallfandomfest](http://smallfandomfest.livejournal.com) and the prompt: The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick/Vaako, Who would be stupid enough to try and touch, let alone take that which belongs to Riddick, and Vaako belongs to Riddick.
> 
> The quote used at the beginning of this fic - In space, no one can hear you scream - is a tagline used for the 1979 movie, Alien. This also marks the first ever Riddick story I have ever written, despite the fact that “The Chronicles of Riddick” is one of my favourite films and has been for a few years! This story is set a few days after the events of The Chronicles of Riddick.

There was a tenet spoken by someone long forgotten in Riddick’s ancient history, that stated - in space, no one can hear you scream. While Riddick suspected that the source may have been fictional, the tenet itself remained true. He’d caused enough pain throughout his existence to know, for a fact, that screams could not be heard in the depths of space. Sometimes, that could be an advantage, when it was other people that were doing the screaming. When it came down to his own screams not being heard, that wasn’t so good, in Riddick’s extensive experience.

Then again, a lot of things couldn’t be considered good in Riddick’s extensive experience. He’d certainly gone without a lot. His current situation, however, was debatable as to whether it could be construed as good or not. He’d been aboard the Necromonger flagship for some days now, and it seemed strange to him, that he found himself in the position of Lord Marshall, rather than as a prisoner.

He stared across the now vacant throne room, polished silver eyes scanning empty walls and picturing the last moments of the fight with the previous Lord Marshall. Even though that fight had occurred in his very recent past, the memories were still as fresh as though they were but a few minutes past, not days.

He thought back that fight, of how he’d been prophesied to kill the Lord Marshall, yet one of the other Necromongers, Lord Marshall’s own second in command, Lord Vaako, had made the move to kill the Lord Marshall himself. When it seemed lost for Riddick, that he’d lose the fight entirely, the young lady known as Kyra had saved him, distracting Lord Marshall long enough for Riddick to drive his knife into his head, killing him instantly.

That Kyra herself had died in battle didn’t escape Riddick‘s ever expansive attention; instead, her death replayed in his mind, haunting his waking thoughts as well as his dreaming ones. He still remembered her as she had been some five years previously, as a young girl masquerading as a boy named Jack, hero-worshipping him yet still destined to become a Necromonger and to die in the heat of battle. Riddick couldn’t save her, no matter how much he’d wanted to. It seemed as though he was destined to be alone, the last of his kind forevermore.

He sighed, feeling the weight of responsibility weighing down upon him, almost feeling like a physical weight upon his shoulders. His thoughts skimmed over Lord Vaako then, who once was the second in command to Lord Marshall, now second in command to Riddick himself. Vaako had proved himself to be quite the efficient advisor, and Riddick had found himself growing closer to the resourceful and intelligent Necromonger.

Despite their closeness, Riddick knew that the driving force behind the Lord had been the Lady and still was, to a certain extent.. Dame Vaako, ever ambitious had goaded her husband on into taking over the Necromonger hordes by attempting to kill the previous Lord Marshall. Lord Vaako had made a valiant attempt, yet had ultimately failed. That honour of killing the Lord Marshall had fallen to Riddick, a fact that Riddick knew didn’t sit well with Dame Vaako.

His mind centred upon her face, ambitious, righteous anger blazing from her very features when she saw her husband, Lord Vaako kneeling before Riddick, in the front lines of subservient hordes willing to serve their new lord and master. To think that Riddick was the one prophesied to kill the prior Necromonger Lord after his race had been wiped out seemed ironic. To say that Dame Vaako was a vicious enemy to have was an understatement.

“Now, what shall I do with you, Dame Vaako?” Riddick mused to himself, picturing her face once more, anger blazing from dark eyes and transforming her face from extremely beautiful into something almost opposite.

Riddick knew all about fury. Being the Alpha Furyan, embodiment of rage itself, kind of allowed him to better understand rage in others. That fact didn’t mean that he approved of it, however, not when it seemed as though he himself would be the prime target for that rage. He knew that he would have no choice but to kill her, before she made an attempt on his life. He knew that he already owned Lord Vaako in mind; to oust Dame Vaako would mean that he owned Lord Vaako in body as well. Only the Dame was holding Vaako back now, from freedom, and becoming the true leader that he could be.

He stood then, mind determined and set upon target now - to kill Dame Vaako. The age old Necromonger tenet remained, that he could keep what he killed. If he killed the Dame, he could keep the Lord. He stole through the corridors of the vast Necromonger ship, feeling the walls and the floor vibrating around him as the massive vessel flew through the endless tracts of space. By his own command, the vast Necromonger fleet had headed away from Helion Prime, where so much destruction had been perpetrated upon the many peoples of that planet, leaving them behind to re-build, re-populate, re-claim everything which they had lost.

He could feel the large vessel literally moving through the stars, booted feet counting out the clicks and parsecs of space travel, fingers tapping an endless rhythm of the distance travelled between the stars to their ultimate destination - the Threshold to the Underverse. It had been at the prior Lord Marshall’s behest that the Necromongers would reach their final goal of the Underverse, that place where death was transcended, and no longer recognised. It had become a kind of mecca for the Necromongers, made even more enticing by the fact that the Lord Marshall had been the only one to ever return.

Riddick made his way through the vast corridors, turning his gaze neither left nor right, not even when the Necromongers saluted him. He merely tipped his head slightly in their direction however; the only acknowledgement he could currently afford them. Even though he was now their leader by default of their own rules, he did not feel as though he were a true part of the Legion Horde. He felt set apart from them, by race, by design, by sheer dint of their former leader wiping out Riddick’s entire race in order that an ancient prophecy wouldn’t come to pass, which still came to pass anyway. He was Furyan, through and through and no matter which quadrant of space he turned up in, he would still be Furyan.

He located the quarters belonging to the Vaakos, distinctly hearing the strident voice of Dame Vaako within, despite not knowing who she was speaking to. He suspected that this time it wasn’t Lord Vaako himself. Riddick’s sharper than most hearing allowed him to eavesdrop without being too near the doorway. Despite this, however, he could only make out odd words, every third one of every sentence. This still allowed him to hear enough of what was going on to piece together the rest for himself. He knew that the Dame was plotting to kill him.

“You shouldn’t be out here, you know,” Lord Vaako’s voice said from behind Riddick.

Riddick had been so invested upon listening to the Dame, he hadn’t heard the Lord approaching. He turned and pinned the other man with his gaze, silver eyes meeting dark ones, too dark in a dead white face ringed by black around the eyes.

“She’ll kill you if she catches you out here,” Vaako said, with an almost embarrassed uptilt to the corners of his mouth.

“She’s going to kill me anyway; you know that as well as I do,” Riddick countered, with a tilt to his own lips.

Vaako inclined his head towards Riddick, as though he knew that, indeed.

“It’s my intention to stop her, any way I can,” Riddick said, watching Vaako closely for the other man’s reaction.

Nothing about Vaako betrayed any kind of emotion at all, eyes carefully guarded, lips set in a perfectly neutral line. Then he nodded, slowly, a certain thoughtfulness pervading his very stance.

“I know this and accept this. Perhaps I could even help you,” Vaako said, slowly, voice pitched to quiet levels in case anyone should hear him pledging to kill his own wife.

“You do realize what you’re saying don’t you?” Riddick said, carefully, surprise lending his tone a lighter quality.

“With regards to the Lady? She is no lady,” Vaako said, eyes darting to the still closed door. “She gave up that title a long time ago when vengeance and ambition entered her mind, destroying everything that she was before.”

“Instead, she became more monster than the Lord Marshall,” Riddick commented, with a sigh.

“If you like,” Vaako said, with a long-suffering nod.

“Then you’ll help me,” Riddick stated rather than asked.

“I will help,” Vaako confirmed, directing a forthright glare towards Riddick.

“Why?” Riddick asked, genuinely interested. “You don’t owe me anything. I seem to remember you wanted to kill me not so long ago.”

“I was under orders,” Vaako reminded him, blandly. “If given the choice, I wouldn’t. I’d rather have you as an ally than as an enemy.”

“Wise man,” Riddick said, with the vaguest of smiles.

Vaako inclined his head towards the Furyan in a bow of subservience, before nodding towards the door again. Riddick managed to ghost away before the door opened, admitting the form of Dame Vaako herself, diminutive and slender yet pervading an authoritative air that made her seem much larger than she actually was.

“Ah, my husband. There you are. What are you doing, loitering in corridors like any other commoner,” the Dame demanded. “I need to speak to you. Urgent matters.”

Vaako hesitated for only a second, before inclining his head towards her in a slight, yet long suffering bow. He did not chance a glance behind him, where he knew he’d be able to see the tell-tale shine of Riddick’s eyes gleaming in the shadows. Riddick watched as Vaako left, back straight and unbowed, as proud as ever.

Riddick found himself grudgingly respecting the other man, even though Vaako had once tried to kill him. It seemed as though Vaako had little say in anything he did, following orders from his wife or his former leader. Riddick hated his freedom taken away from him, finding it preferable to remain largely alone than be fettered by slavery of any kind. He wondered then what sort of a man Vaako would prove to be if he did not have to follow orders from anyone. Riddick suspected that Vaako would be a worthy and valuable ally, already proved by the Necromonger’s warnings. He got the sense that Vaaako saw the shape of freedom from his past in Riddick himself, for himself, and for others like him.

Riddick ghosted away on predator’s feet as soon as it was safe, to think and to plan for potential attacks. That an attack would come was inevitable, that Dame Vaako would be behind it an irrefutable fact and that she’d sanction someone else to do her dirty work for her was also a given. What Riddick had to prepare for was when she would start her attack against him and how.

~~~

The attack when it came wasn’t quite what Riddick expected. The target was not actually Riddick himself, but Lord Vaako. Riddick was once again in the throne room, awaiting news of their imminent arrival at the Threshold to the Underverse, when Vaako staggered in, hands held flat against his abdomen and a glassy expression installed in his eyes. Blood pooled against the flesh of his hands, luridly red against pale skin, and more still dripped against the floor. Riddick straightened immediately and was on his feet before Vaako could get three steps inside the massive room, and it took Riddick little time to cross the room and support Vaako where he swayed.

“Vaako?” Riddick asked, when the other man turned a face turned paler still with agony.

As per the Necromonger way, Vaako was squashing the pain he felt beneath a calm facade. To be converted into the Necromonger faith, all were given the Mark of Pain, which was meant to instil in them the idea that "one pain can lessen another". Vaako was merely enduring his pain as a normal Necromonger would.

“Who did this?” Riddick asked.

“My wife,” Vaako replied, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, unchecked, unnoticed, unheeded.

Riddick nodded briefly, tersely, before supporting Vaako on the way out of the throne room. He handed the injured second in command off to a passing Necromonger, ordering that Vaako be patched up as soon as possible, making it an order and not a request. Without bothering to check to see if his order was followed through, Riddick strode away, pulling his faithful curved blade free of its trappings, ready to kill himself a Dame. He had no compunction about killing her; he never had when the other person threatened him personally or those that he considered close to him. He’d lost Kyra in the past because of the Lord Marshall; he vowed he would not lose Lord Vaako to the Dame.

Without knocking, Riddick strode into the Dame’s quarters, blade pressed to her throat before she could even move from in front of her mirror. Silver eyes met dark brown ones in the reflective surface of the mirror; Dame Vaako’s eyes were frightened despite the air of neutrality she tried to present. Riddick’s eyes were as bland, expressionless and as devoid of life as they ever were. Dame Vaako met those remorseless shiny depths and felt fear for the first time in her life. Even beneath the cruel hand of the former Lord Marshall, she had felt no fear, only the ever striving need for revenge and ambition to climb the ranks, pushing her husband ahead of her until he’d attained the much lauded role of second in command. Even though the Lord Vaako had appeared to be on her side, she’d known that even he had harboured doubts about some things, and that he’d had less compunction to kill Riddick than he’d had to kill the Lord Marshall.

“Why did you do it?” Riddick murmured into her ear, voice dripping with purposeful menace.

“Do what, Riddick?” the Dame replied, in her coolest tone, aiming for disaffected disinterest, yet her body, her eyes gave her away.

There would always be a frisson of tension lying beneath the surface, no matter what attitude she tried to mask her fear with. Riddick knew that better than the Dame ever could. His senses were far more attuned to fear, to negativity than hers even were. He thrived on pain and discontent, body and mind filled with a near constant impenetrable rage at all times. That rage fuelled every movement, every moment, so that he could kill without impunity if deaths were needed.

“You know what I mean,” Riddick replied. “Vaako. He’s your husband. Why did you harm him?”

“I didn’t harm him,” the Dame replied, with her first true smile since Riddick had stolen into her quarters.

“You made someone harm him. Vaako’s blood still stains your hands,” Riddick said, drawing the knife further up so that the tip nicked her skin, drawing blood to well upon her throat.

Bright red droplets stood garishly against dark skin and she hissed in pain as much as in the satisfaction of seeing her own blood spilled. Riddick curled his lip at her, disgusted by her very reactions, denying himself the pleasure of killing her outright before he had any answers.

“It was to get at you. Harm that which is close to you, and so, harm the man himself,” the Dame said, with obvious reluctance in her tone.

“You wanted to weaken me, because Vaako’s close to me?” Riddick asked, in disapproval more than disbelief.

“He listens to you more then he listens to me these days,” Dame Vaako muttered, petulance clear now in her tone.

“You’re jealous,” Riddick said, in realization, with his first chuckle in days.

Only an arch lift of the Dame’s shoulders gave any indication that he was correct. Then she spoke.

“I was hoping that in harming the person closest to you, that I’d have a fair shot at killing you myself while you were grieving and distracted,” she said.

“Killing me yourself. You must be desperate to implicate yourself so directly,” Riddick said, with a frown.

“You of all people should know what it’s like to be so filled with rage, that you can’t think of anything else to do. You know what they say, you keep what you kill. In hurting you first and then killing you, ensures my ascendancy to Lady Marshall status,” the Dame said. “I know what you’re up to. You’re going tostop further conversions from even happening, aren’t you?”

“Conversions are wrong. No one should be forced against their will to convert to the Necromonger way, or be killed if they resist. Everyone ought to have a choice,” Riddick snarled. “My entire race were killed by your Lord Marshall.”

“He was trying to get to you,” the Dame replied.

“He didn’t try hard enough, yet still, my people are dead because of him,” Riddick replied. “Who knows how many other civilizations you wiped out and would have wiped out again if he hadn’t been stopped? At least with me in charge, people have a chance to make their own choices.”

“That’s rich words coming from a convicted murderer,” the Dame replied, raising one eyebrow artfully.

“At least I have a choice to change. The people you kill or convert don’t have the choice,” Riddick repeated.

“Are you going to kill me?” the Dame asked, feeling the slight change in Riddick’s stance, the slight pressure against her neck from the blade changing, shifting ever closer against her already wounded neck.

“You know what they say, you keep what you kill,” Riddick murmured. “I kill you, I keep your husband.”

Dame Vaako’s eyebrows raised again, and her lips quirked, as though at some private inner joke that she wasn’t about to share with Riddick. The amusement she felt only angered Riddick more, and he gouged at her neck with one swift movement, letting her body fall to the floor where she breathed her last. He wiped his blade against her dress and turned to leave the room without a second glance.

~~~

A few days later and Vaako was back upon his feet, still paler than his usually pale state, yet functional all the same. He came to Riddick in the throne room, and knelt before him, head bowed to the one who’d killed for him. Riddick’s smile was hidden from Vaako’s view by the angle of the other’s head, yet smile he did. He laid his hand upon Vaako’s head, and spoke.

“If it’s true what they say about keeping what you kill, then I have made the right choice if I keep you,” he said, quietly.

“Thank you, Lord Marshall,” Vaako said, voice just as quiet as Riddick’s had been.

“Riddick. My name is Riddick. I don’t want to hear you calling me Lord Marshall again. That name died with the last man who bore it,” Riddick corrected him.

“Thank you Riddick,” Vaako amended, turning a dark-eyed gaze up to Riddick’s, a slight smile gracing his lips as he did so.

Something passed between them then, of mutual understanding and regard, before the Furyan allowed the Necromonger to stand.

“Stay,” he said, staring openly at Vaako. “We have much business to attend to.”

Vaako nodded, but remained silent, standing beside the one known as Richard B. Riddick, as the Necromonger fleet flew onwards to the Threshold to the Underverse.

~~ the end ~~


End file.
